19.2.5 Execute transactions

A client can issue an execute transaction across a conversation, or in the case of an automatically established conversation, to a recognized server. There is no need to specify a topic, as an execute transaction instructs the server application to execute a command.

The command and its arguments are issued to the server in the form of a string in a standard format (see Execute transactions). LispWorks provides two ways of issuing an execute transaction, namely
dde-execute-string
and
dde-execute-command
(and the corresponding
*
functions that automatically manage conversations).

dde-execute-string

Function

dde-execute-string
conversation
command
&key
errorp

The function
dde-execute-string
takes the command to issue in the form of an appropriately formatted string. The following example shows how
dde-execute-string*
can issue a command to a server designated by
:excel
on the topic
:system
, in order to open a file called
foo.xls
:

(win32:dde-execute-string* :excel :system "[open(\"foo.xls\")]")

dde-execute-command

Function

dde-execute-command
conversation
command
arg-list
&key
errorp

The function
dde-execute-command
takes the command to issue, and its arguments, and marshals these into an appropriate string for you. The following example shows how
dde-execute-command*
can issue the same command as in the previous example: